Subject to the Hourglass
by Tomorrow
Summary: As time is restored from its tangent, Zelda reflects back on Link and Time Itself.


Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time.   
  
  
  
"Thank you... Link..." I called to him amidst the fading blue and remnants of magic and sagacious pleas the Ocarina's staves dispelled, threaded with clouds passing through the kindred hands of Time Itself. The realm that held us succumbed, haltingly stagnant, to that fateful hourglass the goddesses flipped, at a time they so chose.   
  
The hourglass is turned for our benefit, a way for the goddesses to teach us about our wretched selves and protect us from our own corruption. When history must repeat so that men may learn their place in time and bow to the epoch's reign. Flipped again when all should be forgotten and memories abandoned to the era. Tumbling in impartial chaos. In that fateful pull of gravity, one man's heroism is blended with a villain's hatred and vengeful promise as the grains converge, when destinies have been fulfilled and men are emancipated from this world, from being servants of the dial's will. The sand runs thin, draining into the filling swell--the grains' descent whispering of the tragedies of men. The shaking of the sands prevents us from obtaining forbidden knowledge... from harnassing something so brutal and vital to humanity as Time. Without Its constraints, we live in a reality of entropy and paradox we can't survive.   
  
The bittersweet melody of the Ocarina, its mystical hymn paying homage to this man's damned sacrifice-- It fills my heart... echoes of my fault in the disruption of the timepiece's balance. The sands stood still; the glass was shattered. The shards cut the goddesses' fingers as they went to flip the ancient clock, and their blood so rained upon the sands--tainting those empyreal grains with condemnation.   
  
My intentions betrayed the will of Time, and so It punishes my insurrection with eternal loneliness and ageless guilt: the loss of the one I've grown to love. The "Song of Time" is no longer a string of tones to move the years as men desire, but the lament of a Hylian princess who brought this vengeful apocalypse upon her people, who turned Time against Its children.   
  
Me.   
  
And as I watched him fade into that distant void, witnessed him grow young as the hours were reversed and years detached, I felt my mouth go dry and tears form. My breast ached with suppressed sorrow, nearly heaving as I swallowed the pain--choking me to silence. Everything just felt so heavy, the emptiness so lonely. I was cold with my skin on fire; hot tears branded my cheek as they fell.   
  
Time is being restored from Its tangent. But I am left with nothing--just futile memories that I will lose once the song ensnares me, too. I can't even keep them, my precious memories of him and his beautiful face. Those innocent, compassionate blue eyes that couldn't see-- Couldn't believe that I damned him to this skewed hell. He still protected me and rescued me from the avatar Time sent to subjugate Hyrule. This Hylian that saved humanity's destiny, he who reconciled me to the goddesses. I can't even form his image in my mind anymore as the sorcery prostrates before the hourglass, is sucked into the timepiece's more potent spell.   
  
I just can't conceive a life without that man near me, even if not with me. Time is cruel and uncaring--an ultimate fairness only second to Death. Time passes despite man's will to escape It, and It ages all, regardless of power or prestige. The starving child that begs for spoiled food scraps is just as subject to Time as I, but perhaps he is blest that Death could take him before Time has Its way. I, on the other hand, must answer to that hourglass.   
  
But I can't.   
  
Not without Link. I can't even remember when I began to love him to this extent, as when I failed to breathe without him near. It's as if Time sentenced me to this hopeless love in recompense for treachery. It taught me Its lesson... It taught it well. Time espoused Fate to make me love that Hylian warrior, and all I can do is curse their intercourse and cry through their kisses. For each time these powers mate my heart yearns for that fair-haired swordsman even more. I can't stand it any longer.   
  
And now It has finally forgiven me. Time has chosen to take back Its child and allow her to forget the perfidy she wrought, the misery she knows; for Link sacrificed his childhood for me and for our world, and It has accepted his selfless atonement with compassion and pity on me and the people.   
  
Clean slate, start anew. Knight and princess separate. Recollection lost in those timeless sand grains.   
  
It's flipping over. I can feel it starting over-- My life, my destiny... it's all rewritten and the bottom of the hourglass, empty.   
  
Time can take me, but I don't want to be a part of it.  



End file.
